Find the word definition

Enter the word

What is "onanism"

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary

onanism

"masturbation," also "coitus interruptus," 1727, from Onan, son of Judah (Gen. xxxviii:9), who spilled his seed on the ground rather than impregnate his dead brother's wife: "And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother." The moral of this verse was redirected by those who sought to suppress masturbation.

The Collaborative International Dictionary

Onanism

Usage examples of "onanism".

Self-pollution, or onanism, is one of the most prolific sources of evil, since it leads both to the degradation of body and mind.

It is well known that Onanism, or masturbation, as well as sexual excesses, produce an exhaustion of the nerve centres presiding over the sexual functions.

It is known by the terms, self-pollution, self-abuse, masturbation, onanism, manustupration, voluntary pollution, solitary or secret vice, and other names sufficiently explanatory.

He solemnly affirmed that he had never performed the act of self-pollution but once in his life: and yet for years he had been a constant sufferer from nocturnal emissions until his manhood was nearly lost, evidently the result of the mental onanism which he had practiced without imagining the possibility of harm.

A man in good health, if he cannot have a woman, must necessarily have recourse to onanism, whenever imperious nature demands it, and the man who, from fear of polluting his soul, would abstain from it, would only draw upon himself a mortal disease.

I suppose Father Heribert Jone would say that I am adding onanism to fornication.

The terror of onanism is that bodiless demons are able to make bodies for themselves from the spilled seed.

It has been remarked in Germany that it is precisely in those institutions for young men in which the directors have taken most pains to prevent onanism that this vice is most prevalent.

One night, that long ago, Ralph had surprised his brother in a childish act Of onanism, and had seen that same, expression, that stricken dread and guilt, upon his lovely face.

It has the traditional pattern of the victim running away from fate, only to be overtaken by it in a distant land, of the afflictions that the hero most fears and shuns - gonorrhoea and onanism - catching relentlessly up with him.

A man in good health, if he cannot have a woman, must necessarily have recourse to onanism, whenever imperious nature demands it, and the man who, from fear of polluting his soul, would abstain from it, would only draw upon himself a mortal disease.

It would have been impossible to 'stump' her on any of the most recent German publications, whether they dealt with political economy, mental aberrations, the various foums of onanism, or the philosophy of Epicurus.